Call for Nominations: New 2018 Distinguished Industry Speakers Program

H. Vincent Poor
SPS Awards Board Chair

The IEEE Signal Processing Society invites nominations for the new SPS Distinguished Industry Speakers (DIS) Program. Please note that the Distinguished Industry Speaker positions will supplement the regular Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Program. The Distinguished Industry Speakers Program will closely mirror the DL Program. However, the main difference and goal of the Distinguished Industry Speakers Program is to educate and interact with Society members about topics that are of primary importance to industry and the signal processing community-at-large. The speakers will focus their presentations on industrial applications of interest to practicing engineers and stress practical issues.

The Distinguished Industry Speakers will be available to all SPS Chapters, as are DLs, but lectures will be focused on current and future issues, applications and/or activities in industry. The deadline for nominations is 31 May 2017. The nomination form can be found online at this link.

Candidates for Distinguished Industry Speakers should be members of the IEEE and IEEE Signal Processing Society, who are recognized experts with a background in industrial applications in the signal processing area and are well versed in the ongoing issues/activities in industry, and who are capable of delivering a message of importance to the technical community as well as to the Society’s members organized in chapters around the world. Each year, up to ten (10) technically diverse and geographically dispersed individuals will serve as IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Industry Speakers. Up to five (5) new individuals will be appointed each year, and their formal term of appointment will be two calendar years, with the initial Distinguished Industry Speakers serving from 2018-2019. The nomination and selection process is handled by the Society’s Awards Board with the eventual concurrence of the Board of Governors.

The SP Society’s Distinguished Industry Speaker Program provides means for chapters to have access to individuals who are recognized experts in industrial applications in the signal processing area, to lecture at Chapter meetings. While many IEEE Societies have similar programs, the SPS provides financial support for the SPS Chapters to take advantage of the service. The Society provides an allotment up to $3,500 per SPS Chapter annually to use towards scheduling Society appointed Distinguished Industry Speakers, provided they are pre-approved by the Chapters Coordinator. More details regarding speaker expenses and how to request a speaker can be found here. Nominations should be submitted to Theresa Argiropoulos (t.argiropoulos@ieee.org), who will collect the nominations on behalf of H. Vincent Poor, Awards Board Chair. When making your nomination, please provide the following information:

• Name of candidate, member number, affiliation, title, contact information;
• Brief biography or link to the candidate’s web page; information about current SP, IEEE, or other Society activities;
• The preferred geographic coverage of the lectures and lecture topics;
• Succinct statement supporting the nomination;
• The nomination form can be found online at this link.

DIS nominations must be received no later than 31 May 2017.